Politics As Usual

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Ron and Mikhail's Excellent Adventure: How Reagan won the Cold War

Something in here for all sides.

Even the most passionate of Reagan lovers (Hi Hello!) would admit that Gorby played a role. The relationship between Gorby and RR was no secret. But Gorby played a role because Reagan convinced him to.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Ron and Mikhail's Excellent Adventure: How Reagan won the Cold War

Something in here for all sides.

I'd say that comes as close to getting it right of all articles I've read recently.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Cite, please.

Here ya go.


http://www.fao.org/docrep/W0078E/w00...#P12174_715136


A report identifying average calories per day as of 1992. Zimbabwe is on a par with Angola (if you know anything about Africa, you will understand what being on a par with Angola in 1992 means) and below Sudan.


Are things worse now? Abso-fucking-lutely. But that's not the question I was trying to ask.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Are things worse now? Abso-fucking-lutely. But that's not the question I was trying to ask.

[confidential to Sidd]Sit tight. I have it on good authority that once we stabilize the middle east, asia and africa are next. Just keep voting Republican, DYKWIM?[/confidential to Sidd]

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Gattigap
No, you said that they like the Republican plan for America as much as, and probably more than, pork barrel spending.

If we wish to take the discussion beyond the "well, I just think so" level, I'm all ears if you have an idea for how to measure it, other than your original reference to sacrificing pork in pursuit of these loftier goals.

The grasses are still flattened from this well-trod trail, but as one example, Thurmond switched from Dem to Rep, so maybe it was his Republican Plan for America that convinced people to start voting for him (whoops! continue voting for him.) Or, maybe it was his legendary attention to his consituents, and his skill at obtaining pork.

And wasn't it Phil Gramm who once bragged that he brought home so much pork that he was in danger of getting trichinosis?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
And wasn't it Phil Gramm who once bragged that he brought home so much pork that he was in danger of getting trichinosis?

Indeed. And even Newt stopped attacking New York for sucking on the federal welfare tit after Moynihan (?) pointed out that New York has been subsidizing Georgia for 200 years.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Not Me
[confidential to Sidd]Sit tight. I have it on good authority that once we stabilize the middle east, asia and africa are next. Just keep voting Republican, DYKWIM?[/confidential to Sidd]

Um ...... hoooooooo'kay.

As an aside, though, remember that your neocons aren't doing so well these days:

"Neocons" — best known for advocating aggressive foreign and military policies — are in the painful zone between distinction and disfavor in Washington. They are losing battles on Capitol Hill. Their principles have stopped appearing in new U.S. policies. And where neoconservatives were once seen as having a future in Republican administrations, the setbacks in Iraq could make it difficult for the group's leading members to win Senate confirmation for top posts in the future.

Fourteen months ago, Kenneth Adelman was one of the prominent neoconservatives who took part in a now-storied victory celebration at the home of Vice President Dick Cheney that was described in Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack."

Since then, Adelman acknowledged, the group's influence has declined, because "Iraq didn't turn out to be as promising as it was billed."

Adelman, a former Reagan administration official, said that although he supported the rationale for the war, he was torn about what had happened since. "I still have to sort it all out. I'm just not settled yet," he said.

Other neocons worry that the real trouble for them could begin if President Bush is not reelected and, among conservatives, the finger-pointing begins — in their direction.

Keep the faith (Feith?), fellas. But look out for that cow!

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Indeed. And even Newt stopped attacking New York for sucking on the federal welfare tit after Moynihan (?) pointed out that New York has been subsidizing Georgia for 200 years.

You say subsidization. I say War Reparations.

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
New York has been subsidizing Georgia for 200 years.

Fucking Georgians. I blame Shevardnadze.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gattigap [neocons]

Check the news lately? Things in Iraq are going pretty well now.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Not Me
Check the news lately? Things in Iraq are going pretty well now.

Well, the quote was from today's paper.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Not Me
You say subsidization. I say War Reparations.

We went to war with Georgia 200 years ago?


Obviously you aren't talking about the Civil War -- the South started that one. To the victor, the spoils.*




*for better or worse, as GWB is learning.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Well, the quote was from today's paper.

Morning edition or afternoon?

Ya gotta keep up to keep up, Gatti.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Andrew Sullivan posted this excerpt from a 1982 press conference. This sort of exchange would be inconceivable now.

• Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?
  MR. SPEAKES: What's AIDS?
  Q: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?
  MR. SPEAKES: I don't have it. Do you? (Laughter.)
  Q: No, I don't.
  MR. SPEAKES: You didn't answer my question.
  Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President ...
  MR. SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)
  Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?
  MR. SPEAKES: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.
  Q: Does the President, does anyone in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?
  MR. SPEAKES: I don't think so. I don't think there's been any ...
  Q: Nobody knows?
  MR. SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.
  Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping ...
  MR. SPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he's had no - (laughter) - no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.
  Q: The President doesn't have gay plague, is that what you're saying or what?
  MR. SPEAKES: No, I didn't say that.
  Q: Didn't say that?
  MR. SPEAKES: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn't you stay there? (Laughter.)
  Q: Because I love you Larry, that's why (Laughter.)
  MR. SPEAKES: Oh I see. Just don't put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.)
  Q: Oh, I retract that.
  MR. SPEAKES: I hope so.
  Q: It's too late.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Brad DeLong posts an e-mail from a friend who saw Seymour Hersh (note to conservatives here: if you're just going to dismiss what he says because of who he is, save the electrons and stop reading now) speak at Chicago and who reports:

• Seymour Hersh spoke... at the University of Chicago.... I took some scattered notes. The remaks will be disjoined--as will be the notes--but chilling. He asserted several things that he says he didn't have nailed down enough to write, but that he was confident of....
  
  He then turned to the 40th president, referring obliquely to 138 names, then began to list them, saying those with long memories will catch on: they were the Reagan administration figures accused, indicted, or convicted of wrongdoing....
  
  He talked about Carl Levin (though he didn't use his name) telling him about high officials lying to him in closed hearings, and how frustrating it was to be lied to, in classified settings, when the liars know the senators know they are lying. Levin said he'd never seen such brazenness in Washington....
  
  He waits after the My Lai story broke mid November 1969, one week, two weeks--then, by Thanksgiving 1969, other correspondents finally write about the atrocities THEY had seen in Vietnam: an outpouring that made him feel strange that it took little old him, the police reporter who had flunked out of law school, 11 years after winning his B.A. in English, to unleash this outpouring of truth....
  
  From My Lai, the transition to the current scandals was seemless. He connected the dots, and spoke of the CIA secret prisons we haven't heard about yet: "We're basically in the disappearing business." He made the first of several criticisms of our humble profession: "there's no learning curve in America. There's no learning curve in the press corps."...
  
  Unsurprisingly, he flagged the extraordinary importance of the WSJ memo revealing the government's plans to torture, including its assertion that it's not against the law if the president approves it, and mocked the New York Times headline "9 Militias Are Said to Approve a Deal to Disband," suggesting in its stead, "Bush Administration Offers Hoax in Hopes of Convincing U.S. There's Some Peace." His assessment of the postwar settlement: "It's going to come down to who has the biggest militia will win."...
  
  Then a story from one of his intelligence sources, whom Hersh says didn't find it an unflattering story: some time in 1986 or 1987, Reagan was given a long chart presentation of what actually happened with Iran/Contra and began sleeping five minutes in to it, then snoring on Nancy's shoulder. After twenty minutes it was over, the helicopter was fired up for the Friday trip to Camp David, Nancy aroused him, he awoke with a start, glanced at the charts, and asked, "What's that." Sy said something like "That's MY Ronald Reagan."...
  
  "NATO's falling apart in Afghanistan now."
  
  And this was one of the most stunning parts. He had just returned from Europe, and he said high officials, even foreign ministers, who used to only talk to him off the record or give him backchannel messages, were speaking on the record that the next time the U.S. comes to them with intelligence, they'll simply have no reason to believe it.... He lamented of his journalistic colleagues, "I don't know whey they don't just tell it like it is."...
  
  He said the people most horrified by the way the war was planned were the military commanders responsible for protecting their troops.... He talked about the horror of the 1000 civilian deaths in Fallujah (but was careful to note the Marines were doing their job, placing the blame with their superiors)....
  
  He talked about how hard it is to get the truth out in Republican Washington: "If you agree with the neocons you're a genius. If you disagree you're a traitor." Bush, he said, was closing ranks, purging anyone who wasn't 100% with him. Said Tenet has a child in bad health, has heart problems, and seemed to find him generally a decent guy under unimaginable pressure, and that people told him that Tenet feared a heart attack if he had to take one more grilling from Cheney. "When these guys memoirs come out, it will shock all of us."...
  
  He said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, "You haven't begun to see evil..." then trailed off. He said, "horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run."
  
  He looked frightened.